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In Ivanpah, California, we have created a monsterous and embarrassing boondoggle in the interest of promoting a decieptful "renewable energy project".
Ivanpah consists of three production units, each of which covers 1 square mile of desert with mirrors, that focus the suns rays on a tower to heat liquid metals that are then used to heat WATER(in the desert) to produce high pressure steam that turns the turbines on electric generators....the electricity then must be transported across 50 miles of newly constructed grid lines to Las Vegas or 200 miles across newly constructed grid lines to Los Angeles....either way with tremendous line loss.
And through some twisted political lobbyist logic this is considered "green".
(BTW....just down the road in Barstow, the pilot project Solar One was built in 1970s and soon shut down as too inefficient and destructive to the environment)

Oil and the Exploration for Oil are expensive operations.
Dependency on a natural resource that is percieved to be in increasingly unstable, uncontrollable, and unpredictable zones of the planet(ie...middle east, russia, africa, south america).
As the world begins to break into competing trade zones, open and free trade routes also become a premium.
For nations like Germany and Japan, it is extremely prudent for them to develop an independent and reliable source of energy that is more efficient and less expensive than using fossil fuels to boil water.
China and India have done the math and recognized that they simply have too great a demand for energy than to rely on tenuous trade routes for their energy sources. Both huge nations are burdened with extreme bureaucracies that prevent practical exploitation of domestic natural resources such as coal and uranium.

I would argue that mining and drilling and other related activities to fossil fuels production don't benefit from learning curve. Lately, the brightest evidence to the contrary is effectiveness of drilling technologies in the shale industry in the US and deepwater drilling technologies of the oil majors.

ironically china and india are not abandoning nuclear power. They probably learned the lessons from early adopters of renewables like the EU that its easier and cheaper to let nuclear and renewables cooperate

That is the dream, which hopefully comes true asap. Alas so far the reality is China and India are leading a new surge in fossil fuel consumption: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-14/big-oil-make-way-for-big-solar-the-winners-and-losers-in-paris.

While I hope this author is correct in his analysis, I think Hamas ignoring some important aspects of what is going on. First, Japan is still highly invested in retaining the use of nuclear power in its energy mix. PM Abe hopes to restart about half of the plants now shut down with inadequate attention to safety, let alone over the objections of 70% of the populace.

Second, how can he view China and India as moving 'rapidly' towards renewables when they insist that they must still build coal based plants over the next 10+ years or so? China won't begin to reduce its production of CO2 until 2030, for example.

I fear this article is more wishful thinking based on theories of cost reduction, etc than actual fact.

This article reflects the traditional thinking about the transition of renewable energy infrastructure based on the centralized, grid infrastructure controlled by major services providers. This results in very inefficient and highly capital intensive ‘mega-projects’ such as billion dollar dams and solar farms funded by the traditional global players .
We need a new approach to accelerate and deploy the emerging renewable energy infrastructure that will provide for rapid adoption, reduced fixed capital investment, wide dispersal, and flexibility to adapt to rapid changes in technology.
The most recent example was the adoption of the emerging economies of mobile networks as an alternative to traditional land based networks. The results are still being felt across the continents in Africa and Asia.
The new renewable energy revolution must be based on distributed and decentralized systems targeting the most rapid adoption of most effective systems.
The entrenched power distribution industry in the USA is blocking the adoption of solar in Arizona, California, and Hawaii citing the need for ‘infrastrucure improvements’that will serve their vested interests. We do not need to repeat the models of the old energy systems.

Interesting observation this. What evidence to back this assertion do you have? At what levels in society and by how much do views of renewables vary in China and India? Are concerns about local air quality also a driver towards renewables over fossil fuels?

See also:

In the first year of his presidency, Donald Trump has consistently sold out the blue-collar, socially conservative whites who brought him to power, while pursuing policies to enrich his fellow plutocrats.

Sooner or later, Trump's core supporters will wake up to this fact, so it is worth asking how far he might go to keep them on his side.

A Saudi prince has been revealed to be the buyer of Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi," for which he spent $450.3 million. Had he given the money to the poor, as the subject of the painting instructed another rich man, he could have restored eyesight to nine million people, or enabled 13 million families to grow 50% more food.

While many people believe that technological progress and job destruction are accelerating dramatically, there is no evidence of either trend. In reality, total factor productivity, the best summary measure of the pace of technical change, has been stagnating since 2005 in the US and across the advanced-country world.

The Bollywood film Padmavati has inspired heated debate, hysterical threats of violence, and a ban in four states governed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party – all before its release. The tolerance that once accompanied India’s remarkable diversity is wearing thin these days.

The Hungarian government has released the results of its "national consultation" on what it calls the "Soros Plan" to flood the country with Muslim migrants and refugees. But no such plan exists, only a taxpayer-funded propaganda campaign to help a corrupt administration deflect attention from its failure to fulfill Hungarians’ aspirations.

French President Emmanuel Macron wants European leaders to appoint a eurozone finance minister as a way to ensure the single currency's long-term viability. But would it work, and, more fundamentally, is it necessary?

The US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel comes in defiance of overwhelming global opposition. The message is clear: the Trump administration is determined to dictate the Israeli version of peace with the Palestinians, rather than to mediate an equitable agreement between the two sides.